Launching the People’s Hearing on Racism and Repression at CUNY

The idea for the People's Hearing comes out of organizing that took place in our CUNY community in the summer of 2022 in response to the CUNY administration’s participation in a sham hearing organized by the New York City Council’s higher education committee. The hearing was the result of pressure by right-wing groups who made it clear that their aim was to force CUNY to adopt policies that would in effect erase any mention of Palestine from the university space in direct response to successful Palestine liberation organizing across the university. The administration’s decision to participate in this hearing in the face of anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia and other forms of systemic racism and racialized violence on our campuses is a testament to how the administration has often been the agent of such forms of violent racism via being an outright source or through selective silence. As such, we felt strongly that what was needed was in fact a different hearing - a People’s Hearing - to hold the university accountable to its students and workers, and to the wider community in which it is embedded.

The struggles that we face across our campuses are not removed from the institutionalized and cyclical violence that is embedded in the broader New York City political and economic system - it is a part of it. Anti-racist demands from the 2020 uprising have been ignored and co-opted by administrators and politicians to quell the rightful and radical demands of Black students and faculty. Over-policing has persisted at CUNY as the NYPD and ICE are regularly permitted on our campuses along with already present campus police, contributing to a psychologically distressing and physically unsafe environment where members are often arrested and attacked for resisting discrimination. Palestinian students and Palestine solidarity organizers have been targeted with surveillance and repression. Muslim students have been actively targeted by the NYPD and FBI in both mosques and student organizations. Both the City and CUNY have used austerity as an excuse to institute budget cuts around public goods and services while increasing investment in the institutions of organized violence, such as Rikers. At CUNY, we have seen increased investment in the salaries and perks of senior administration while students are hit with tuition increases, the conditions under which we work and study continue to deteriorate, and the administration largely ignores the on-going pandemic.

WE SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

The People's Hearing seeks to build solidarity between our existing struggles, and germinate new forms of collaboration and mobilization to link the fight for a true People's University with a fight for a People’s NYC.

This launch event on March 9th, 6-8:30 pm at the Graduate Center will bring together different groups across CUNY and NYC to share existing and future organizing to combat systemic racism, the politics of austerity, gentrification, the multi-tier exploitative academic labor system, academic freedom attacks, surveillance, and policing across CUNY and NYC more broadly. The aim is to build on past and ongoing forms of grassroots organizing to shed light on the persistent ways that the CUNY and City administrations perpetuate institutionalized racism, transphobia, sexism, ableism, colonialism and imperialism. In doing so, we also will make connections with solidarity initiatives for Palestine, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Haiti and other struggles for liberation, abolition, reparations and decolonization/ landback. The idea is to work towards a public hearing in the near future to stop CUNY and NYC administrations from perpetuating numerous forms of violence and hold them accountable to us. Collectively, we have the power to radically transform our public institutions such as CUNY.

Let's work together to build towards a People’s CUNY and a People’s NYC!

Co-Sponsoring Organizations

Al Awda- New York

Amazon Labor Union

Anakbayan Manhattan

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) - NYC

Black Latinx Faculty Staff Alliance, Queens College

Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine

Critical Palestine Studies Association

CUNY for Palestine

CUNY Rank and File Action

College of Staten Island SJP

Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)

Jewish Law Students Association, CUNY Law

Macaulay Peace Action

National Lawyers Guild

NY Boricua Resistance

Palestine Solidarity Alliance

Palestine Youth Movement (PYM)-NYC

Prisoner Solidarity Network NYU A/P/A BRIDGE

Reclaim the Commons, Graduate Center

Students for Justice in Palestine, CUNY Law

The Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies, San Francisco State University Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice

Samidoun

Within Our Lifetime

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)-NYC

JVP-Westchester